Misinformation

   So I had my last final on Wednesday. Last day of work is today. I'm probably returning to Davis on Monday.


Misinformation
   So as I may or may not have mentioned before, the UN Class professor lecturer is kinda... yeah.
   Well she doesn't seem to know things that aren't in her notes, and as I know I've said before but I'll say it again, SHE CAN'T PRONOUNCE KOFI ANNAN!?!?!?!?! And what IS in her notes she has a tendency to elaborate on quite liberally (in both senses of the word).
   For example in listing the countries that "probably" have nuclear weapons, she listed those that were in her notes, but then went on to list every country that was either really big or a US ally. I think she listed South Korea, which is tremendously silly, and Cuba which is so ridiculous it insults my intelligence to even debate with her, and Brazil.
   At the time I couldn't help but raise my hand and innocently ask "I thought Brazil formally renounced and dismantled its nuclear program in favour of the nuclear free zone of South America?" "When would this have been?" "uh, about ten years ago?" "Well maybe that would be a good extra credit question if anyone could find out!"

   So I put together a little report on the Brazilian nuclear weapons program. Basically it turns out, in descending order of significance: (1) Brazil and Argentina, regional arch-enemies, have both renounced nuclear weapons and committed to mutual inspections of eachother's nuclear sites, (2) Brazil has written it into its constitution that it cannot develop nuclear weapons, (3) Brazil has signed on to the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the Nuclear Weapon Free Zone (NWFZ) of South America, (4) Brazil has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
   And its not like this is a new development she might not have caught yet.. they renounced their nuclear program back in 1990. I didn't ask for extra credit, but in a recent email she indicated that she gave me 5 points for it. Considering that the final exam was 80 points, that might put me back in the running for the A+ I'm after. (= (but I swear I did it to be a smart-ass, not a point grubber!)


   A significant portion of the class was also taught through oral reports - many of which were terribly. For the mandatory "my solutions" part of the report on Uganda & Sudan (the one I mentioned earlier because I eventually had to straighten out the informational mess they got themselves into), the girl's "solution" was that the countries stop hiring child soldiers and and supporting eachothers rebellions. Yeah and I propose we stop all international war and al-queda stops terrorisin!
   Anyway we recently had I particularly mediocre one on the status of women in Afghanistan, in which the presenter made the critical mistake of failing to clearly differential between circumstances described being during the Taliban, after, or previous.
   But my point is, when she was done, this girl who I guess maybe was Afghani, the way she seemed to take it so personally, decided to share with the class "actually Afghanistan was extremely liberal before the taliban came to power... 50 years ago women in afghanistan wore bikinis!" And more along the utopian tangent. My immediate reaction was "bikinis to WHAT beaches?!?" but then Chonchol astutely observed "women didn't wear bikinis in AMERICA 50 years ago." So yeah, wtf.


Picture of the Day

   This is the notice my mother left me on the kitchen table the other morning.
   Speaking of my mother, apparently on the maternal side of my family there are now two uncles, one aunt, one cousin, and both the grandparents with LIVEJOURNALS of their own. In other-words, most of the family. O= Its the method of communicating of the future.
   Incidentally I'm a badperson and didn't seriously investigate this situation until just this moment when I thought I'd see if there was something on the subject I could link to, and turns out they post a fair amount of pictures of things. So if you for some reason want to see what my maternal extended family is like, check out Auntie Bev's friends list.


Related
   Sunday is International Talk Like A Pirate Day
   Year Ago Tuesday: The Case Against Brandon, The Case Against Mike (tHH), & Fighting Horrible People - tension with Mike tHH comes to a head.
   Year Ago Wednesday: Tension II